My buddy from Australia, Tony Obermeit often sends me good suggestions for subjects for this space and he recently suggested writing about the habit some guitarists have of naming their guitars. There is a very active thread going on one of the guitar forums about this. I read through it and to be totally frank, I think it is kind of silly. But hey, that’s just me. Over the many decades I’ve played I’ve owned some very nice guitars that I had something like an emotional bond with but it never occurred to me to give them a name. This may be because being a professional musician I can’t help but view my guitars as tools – very nice tools, yes, but tools nevertheless. But the naming of inanimate objects had a long-standing tradition. Boats probably have been given human names for as long as people have gone to sea. I get that. A boat can seem to almost come alive as it melds with the ocean, taking on a life it does not display when at rest. Giving a boat a name may also be a tribute to a loved one and its beauty and graceful movement may bring to mind a special person. Is it so different with guitars? I once read that modern guitar body design (going back a couple hundred years) was meant to imitate a woman’s body. This always brings a smile to my face when considering the wider lower bout and narrower upper bout of a guitar, an attribute that is hardly considered desirable by women these days (!) but perhaps that was not the case two hundred years ago? In any case, I can understand why someone would attach a human, physical aspect to a guitar. Just like a boat, while often pretty at rest it seems to come alive when controlled (played) by the owner. And just like a boat, it responds to its environment. Sometimes being at the helm of a boat gliding along on a sapphire blue sea is sublime, just like those moments when you play a piece of music that comes out close to perfection. There is a sign at one of my favorite places in the Caribbean, Ti Kaye resort on St. Lucia, that warns bathers: “Sometimes the sea gets angry, as we all do.” That angry sea can make boating a frustrating and unpleasant experience. Boat handling becomes a very personal challenge at those times and it can seem like the ocean and the craft itself are conspiring to make you uncomfortable at best. So it is with guitar playing at times, too. That well loved guitar can seem contrary and frustrating on some days, almost seeming determined to rebel against your best efforts. I played that song so well the last time I tried it, you think. Why is it so bad today? It must be the guitar’s fault that it sounds awful! (My usual solution to this is to change the strings – which always makes my guitar sound better – or just put the damn thing down for a while and come back to it later!) My best guess as to why people give human names to their guitars is that for many of us, some of our most rewarding and yes, emotional experiences take place while playing. The more it happens, the more we attach emotional, almost human values to something that is really nothing more than wood, steel and glue. But like humans themselves who are just various organic materials, it is the sum of those parts and most importantly, something essentially indefinable that makes us bond. So who am I to judge those who call their guitars by name? Peace & good music, Gene

No matter how great a guitar sounds or looks, or how much it costs for that matter, if it doesn’t “feel right” you’re going to be disappointed, most likely sooner rather than later. I have certainly had this experience. One of the risks of buying a guitar without playing it – something quite common these days with the advent of internet sales – is that the neck width and shape will just not work for you. I’ve bought and quickly sold many a guitar that was great in every other way but I just couldn’t bond with it because it was just too uncomfortable to play. Here are some basics about widths and shapes that I hope will help a buyer make at least an educated guess about comfort and play-ability when buying a guitar without playing it first. The first consideration is nut width. The two most common nut widths are 1 11/16” and 1 ¾” on steel string guitars. You wouldn’t think that only 1/16” difference would make all that much difference but it truly does. For better than 150 years, Martin guitars were made with nuts that measured 1 11/16” (with a few early exceptions) and even today most standard Martin models come through with that nut width. Things are changing a bit at this venerable company however – about two years ago they began building their classic D-18 with a 1 ¾” nut and many of the limited edition models come with nuts at that width. Likewise, the vast majority of the “boutique” makers use 1 ¾” as their standard nut width. Taylor guitars started with the 1 11/16” nut width but quickly went over to 1 ¾” combined with a very shallow, almost flat neck profile (more on that in the next installment) for the vast majority of their guitars. Gibson acoustics mostly have 1 11/16” nuts but some, especially their modern jumbo size instruments show a width that is just a hair wider, perhaps 1 23/32”. Some imported guitars are narrower at the nut, similar to many electric guitars, with a measurement of just 1 5/8” – in my opinion this is too narrow for many people on an acoustic guitar, which of course uses strings that are heavier and wider than those used on an electric in most cases. In the other direction, some steel string guitars (12-strings in particular) have nut widths of 1 7/8” or even slightly wider. This is necessary to facilitate fingering of the doubled up strings on a 12-string. On nylon string guitars the standard measurements are usually given in millimeters. The two most common on pure classical guitars are 50mm and 52mm. Wider necks are common on classical guitars to compensate for the increased movement of nylon strings and to allow for better separation of the strings at the bridge for better accuracy when playing individual strings with the fingers. The new “crossover” nylon string guitars used by many jazz and bossa nova players have narrower nuts, usually 1 7/8”. If you’re primarily a steel string player looking to get into nylon, this type of guitar will most likely be easier to play. So which one is right for you? It comes down to your finger width. I am blessed with fairly narrow but (sadly!) fairly short fingers. Because of this I find the 1 11/16” nut width to be perfect most of the time. However, I believe that most men who have wider fingers will find it easier to get a good sound, i.e., no buzzes or muffled notes due to touching adjacent strings when fingering chords and single note passages, with a guitar that has a 1 ¾” nut. Most women or children will do better with the 1 11/16” nut as a 1 ¾” requires more of a “reach” and that requires more finger strength. Not to say women and kids cannot play the wider neck but the learning curve for a beginner will be more severe. Next time I’ll get into neck shapes. This is a much more complicated and subjective issue, so as always, remember that everything you read here in my ramblings is opinion only. “Your mileage may vary.” Peace & good music, Gene